'Balance' fetish is best avoided in news coverage: Ted Diadiun

Peggy Turbett, The Plain DealerTwo members of the PolitiFact Ohio team -- reporter Tom Feran, left, and editor Bob Higgs -- at work in The Plain Dealer newsroom.

Just short of half a year separates us from the Nov. 6 election, and we all know what we're in for -- 26 of the most contentious weeks we've ever seen.

A lot of you are dreading that. But some are already warming to the approaching conflagration, turning every conversation into a political debate, and every day's newspaper into a search for unfairness and imbalance in the stories, photos and presentation they find there.

As the guy who's typically on the receiving end of comments about political news coverage around here, I can tell you that, thanks to Fox News' slogan, almost every one includes the words "fairness" and "balance." They are practically inseparable; you almost never hear one without the other.

But here's a notion I'd like you to consider: News -- particularly political news -- should always be presented fairly, and in an unbiased way. However, I'm not so sure that "balance" should get equal billing.

In last week's column, for example, I mentioned a reader who wanted to know why we had published a certain opinion poll in the weekly The Pulse feature on the editorial page. The poll showed President Barack Obama as the favored candidate over Republican Mitt Romney by a 53-41 percent margin.

In retrospect, that poll result does seem like an outlier when compared with the results of others that compared the two candidates. But my answer holds: It was a snapshot taken many months out from the election, there will be other polls with other results, and no one should get in a sweat about it.

Later, I found myself wondering if we had published other polls in The Pulse that weren't so kind to Obama. And I stopped short.

Why is that relevant? Is that really what readers need from us?

How would it help any reader's understanding of the political scene if we tried to make sure that we ran one poll showing Obama doing well one week, and another with Romney on top the next?

Sure, it would be "balanced." But it's not our job to try to make everyone happy. Our job is to give readers a realistic view of what is going on.

This is a reader service that takes interesting or controversial political statements and accusations, reports them fully, and then lets readers know whether the statements are true, false or somewhere in between.

I've responded to accusations of bias in PolitiFact several times in this column, and each time I have reported triumphantly that the overall numbers show similar results in the percentages of truth and falsity between Democrats and Republicans.

But should that really be our goal with PolitiFact? To make sure that we find equal numbers of misleading statements from each political party?

Sure, that would be "balanced." But wouldn't you rather your newspaper examine the most relevant (or outrageous) statements from the politicians, and just let the chips fall? The goal should be to tell you whether you can believe these folks when you cast your vote in November. If things balance out, fine. If not, bad luck for the party on the losing end, but still fine.

I asked Bob Higgs, the editor who oversees the PolitiFact Ohio operation, if he deliberately tries for balance:

"The belief is that if we apply the same constructive standards to all claims, we'll end up treating all sides fairly," he said. "Some of the state operations (there are 10 in the PolitiFact organization), as well as the national operation, do not tally the rankings at all."

Higgs admits that he does tally up the results by party (which shows them remarkably even), "but only to see after the fact how we've done."

He says in selecting claims for PolitiFact Ohio to review, he looks for items that pique his curiosity -- "ones that make us say, 'Really?' A lot of times, what we find out is very different from what we thought we were going to find out."

In my very first Reader Rep column, more than seven years ago, I said that I wouldn't judge fairness and quality by story counts. I've broken that vow a couple of times, spending a lot of time and effort, and accomplishing very little for my trouble.

Why? Because story counts don't mean anything. The job is to cover the news -- what's happening, who's lying, who's telling the truth -- not to try to write the same number of words about each.

I don't care what Fox's motto says: Balance isn't as important as fairness and news judgment.

Follow Us

cleveland.com is powered by Plain Dealer Publishing Co. and Northeast Ohio Media Group. All rights reserved (About Us).The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Northeast Ohio Media Group LLC.